


Left Behind

by Pilarcraft



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chronos Escapes, Gen, Mick has Temporal Micro-manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22653772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pilarcraft/pseuds/Pilarcraft
Summary: Chronos hadn't succeeded in bringing Rip Hunter down. He had a feeling he was about to become a target, but he could handle the Hunters. Provided he didn't make enough of a mess outrunning them, he would be just fine letting Chronos die. Mick Rory, Master Thief and Infamous Criminal, now with a Timeship. What could possibly stand on his way?
Relationships: Mick Rory & Leonard Snart, Sara Lance & Kendra Saunders
Kudos: 10





	Left Behind

Snart woke up without any prior warning. His eyes opened quickly, and the first thing he noticed was the fact he had been cuffed by a crude, well, handcuff. Well, crude for what he was assuming was a 22nd century Timeship. He'd been cuffed to a metal bar. Underneath, a thick metal grate chilled his legs. The last thing he'd remembered was the firefight with the heavily-armored Mercenary. He'd probably been hit... and taken captive?

Before he could begin to notice where he was, a clanking noise jostled him back to his cuffs. He turned towards the source -the mercenary in heavy armor, helmet, and cape -all in black, of course- that had been chasing them for... however long it had been since they'd tried to off Savage the first time. Chronos.

"Uh... _hello_?" Snart's first thoughts poured out of his mouth. The Mercenary paid him no heed as he stared at the Central Processor of his ship's deck. "A UFO sighting in Hub City in 1960 has created a Time Anomaly." his current adversary said with a heavily metallic voice. "It looks like your _friends_ survived."

"And what would they be doing in 1960?" Snart asked. He'd been snatched when they were still in 1958 -or well, that was when the ship had entered the Temporal Zone. Why would it take so long for them to- and where was _he_?

The black-clad man did not answer him. He didn't even turn, still staring at the holographic projections on his Processor. "So uh... what's so special about _me_? I mean, aside from my _sparkling_ personality." he asked, hoping the mercenary would answer him this time. "Back on the Waverider, you could have taken your boy Rip, but you took me instead. Why? Hey, if you're gonna kill me, you could at _least_ tell me what's going on."

"You should have figured it out by now," The Mercenary slowly rose from his leaning position, looking sideways at his captive audience. He raised his head, and raised his hands to his helmet. The mercenary took his helmet off, and a man with the face of Leonard Snart's dearest -and possibly only- friend stared back at him, "after all, I am supposed to be the dumb one"

H-h-"How?" 

Rory -if it even _was_ Rory, he'd seen weirder things on the ship- didn't answer. He looked _pissed_ -but then again that was one of Mick's three favorite expressions- but he did not seem to be as explosively angry as he had been. Mick's explosive anger Leonard could deal with. Mick's silent anger, well the last time he'd seen that one, Rory had nearly killed Ms. Lance in hand to hand. 

Well, if "Mick" was angry, so was he. Shocked, perhaps, but angry still. Rory was supposed to be the spot, waiting for him to come and pick him off again. He wasn't supposed to be, what, a Mercenary at the employ of the Time Masters. "I think I deserve to know what the _hell_ is going on here!"

"You deserve nothing." Rory said. It was a deadpan. Not his regular deadpan -an intonation not completely unlike what Snart had created for his 'Captain Cold' persona fairly recently- but in an emotionless, souless, toneless drawl. 

"Says the man who _sold_ us out to the Pirates!" Snart bit back, his anger overcoming his _momentary_ shock after learning it _was_ Mick. "When I dropped you in that forest I _meant_ to kill you. That _was_ the plan!" Rory replied with that same drawl "you should have stuck with the plan and done me a _favor_ "

"I may not have trusted you on the Ship with the Team, but I was always, _always_ was coming back for you."

Rory tilted his head, "seems like _one of us_ lost track of time."

"How long did you-" "By the time they found me," Rory cut in loudly. Well, that was an explosive, angry shout. That Leonard could deal with. "I'd nearly lost my mind. I was so _weak_ I was strangling rats to survive."

Wait.

Wait.

"When _who_ found you?" 

Rory turned his head, staring at the walls of his -his?- ship blankly, "the Time-Masters." He rose again, turning towards his Deck again.

"They took me to a place called The Vanishing Point. Time doesn't _exist_ there the way it does in Earth." he circled around his deck -that wasn't too different from that of the Waverider. Maybe they were made by the same company? It appeared so. "I spent lifetimes being restored by them, training by them, fighting by them. Being reborn"

That wasn't- Those _bastards!_

"And uh, when exactly did your new _friends_ give you the... uh... lobotomy?"

Well, that got a rise out of him. Rory stalked towards his cuffed prey, a look of absolute _hate_ in his eyes. "Oh, you think I was hunting you and your _friends_ because the Time Masters made me?" Wait no, he was back to the drawl again. "They barely had to _ask_."

"Look, if you wanna kill me, just _do it_ already" He doubted that Rory would stick by the same standards as Snart had back in the forest -he sure hoped Rory didn't- but that didn't seem to be the plan. 

"That _is_ the plan, but we can get to that later. Right now, we're taking a trip back to Central City. We can visit Lisa when we're there, how about that?" he didn't look back, but Snart knew Rory didn't _need_ to see him to know how horrified he looked right now, "the beautiful thing about Time Travel is, I get to kill her more than once. I can kill Lisa right here, go back five minutes before I snatch her, kill her in front of you again. And again. And again."

Snart would have lunged at him if he could. As it was, all it did was raise some clanging noise from the cuffs. But- "Sir, Several Anomalies in the timeline suggest that the Waverider touched down in Nanda Parbat."

"Maybe it's time to give the Shadows a thrashing again," Rory scoffed, "Chart a course!" he commanded the AI -his ship's Gideon?- and then began monologuing. "I used to think the most beautiful thing on earth was Fire. Now I know, it's Vengeance."

It took them far less than it probably should have on the Waverider -but then again, who _knew_ where Mic- Chronos had parked his timeship on the Temporal Zone- but they seemed to be there. Rory turned back. 

"Would you mind loosening these up a bit before you leave?" No response. Mick wasn't usually this good at keeping his opinions to himself. Especially when he was being baited into it. Huh.

"Just out of curiosity, what do you think your new _masters_ are going to do to you once you've delivered the Team up to them?" he asked, Chronos had picked... one of his rifles again -he had no idea what that was- "I don't expect there's a pension plan for old bounty hunters. Once they get what they want from you, they're gonna toss you aside."

"Like _you_ tossed me aside?" he asked suddenly with a raised eyebrow. "You and I _both_ made choices that let us to this moment. What _matters_ , Mick, is your next move. I'm willing to bet that Some little piece of the old you is in that armor somewhere.

"You're still not getting it" Mick smirked. That wasn't very reassuring. "I _know_ you, Leonard Snart. Or at least I thought I did. You're talking in your Cold voice. But let me reassure you: You're right, but you're also wrong. There _is_ a piece of the 'old' me in this armor, and what that piece is going to do is make sure your little friends' ending will be much, _much_ slower and more painful than the Time Masters expect." he put the helmet back on, stared at Leonard Snart, and walked out of the Deck the same way he had walked into it. 

* * *

Kendra Saunders had not expected to cross blades with a Master Assassin and an esteemed member of the Demon's own Order when she had woken up this morning -she expected nothing more than just a lovely picnic with Ray. Maybe that was the reason why Sara -or was it _Ta'er al-Sa'fer_ now?- had kicked her ass so thoroughly. but then again, while physically stronger by far, she was never as skilled -much less with a _sword-_ as the Team's other female member. To be perfectly honest, she had only hoped to trigger Sara's memories by getting in this particular situation -hey, if it works on the movies, it works on the real life. And it had.

As she looked at the woman stand down her blade, she let out a sigh of relief. Of course, that was when something blew up.

Everyone -those in binds as well as their bounders- stared up at the ceiling as more explosions shook the building. She sighed, "I know that sound". As if on a cue, laser gunshots and pained screams of dying men joined the cacophony of explosion. "Chronos," hunter said, either voicing everyone's thought or simply reaching the conclusion first. 

That was when the man of the hour stalked into the room by shooting a man guarding the door by his body twice and kicking him aside. 

It took the pesky bounty hunter -of expensive equipment, if not considerable skill- to open fire at the assassins. You'd think he'd hit the shackled, clearly anachronistic folks on the proverbial deathrow than the faceless mooks, but it certainly helped. Sara snarled "Free them. It is the only way.". Ra's did not respond, but viewing one of his skilled assassins shooting a considerably pointy arrow at the heavily armored mercenary and getting shot in the chest for his trouble made him reconsider. 

Sara was -surprisingly enough- the first of them to fall. She engaged first -closest to the Demon's Head, not to mention Chronos. She attacked. Got a few good hits in -a kick in the chest, a sword hit on the shoulders and three on the chest -all blocked by the armor- but fell down the moment Chronos slammed his gun at her, and while the mercenary didn't _shoot_ her -thankfully- he did slam his gun at the assassin's face, knocking her out cold.

And that was only the beginning. Jax and Stein were terrifying as Firestorm, but they were nowhere as skilled with their powers as they should have been. One timely shot -after his first four missed- brought down the Nuclear Man down and back into its two components. 

Ray was next. He shrinked quickly, annoying the mercenary, but his "enlarging punch" was blocked quickly, and the Mercenary's gun, slammed at his head with much more force than was necessary, quickly dispatched him. That was when Kendra attacked.

A well-placed kick disarmed the mercenary, but that was the only hit that the mercenary took. Kendra attacked again, and only noticed that she couldn't move while mid-kick. The mercenary snarled, took a look at the now-remerged Firestorm and snarled. " _Another time, then"_

* * *

The guards at the entrance were dead. Echoes of shots came down the corridor. Cradling his right - _handless-_ arm , Leonard half-ran with no plan on his mind. With shots, grunts, and the occasiona _Kiai_ guiding him, he quickly found his way to the second Chamber. Even before dragging himself through the door, he could only say _"Don't do it! Don't kill him!",_ prepared to beg for his lost friend's life as he-

Chronos wasn't there. That was impossible. Chronos _had_ to be there, he'd been fighting numerous assassins _and_ the Team -had they killed him?

"Where is he?"

"Chronos... got away." Hunter said. "But no matter, I'm confident we can-"

"It's _Mick_."

* * *

"You owe us an explanation", Rip said later, when Ms. Lance had said her farewells and they were back on the ship. 

"Yes, it's _quite_ remarkable Mr. Rory is working for the Time Masters considering you _killed_ him."

"It's the _Time_ Masters. They could have just snagged him at any point in the past" he tried to lie, " _Could have_?" Sara noticed it first.

He sighed. Time to come clean. "If you think back, I never actually _said_ I killed him."

"No, you just let us think that you did" Jackson said. "Didn't have to try too hard now, did I? Maybe I _should_ have, at least he wouldn't have wound up a chew toy for the Time Masters."

Rip paused, "But if you had, we wouldn't have this opportunity"

"Opportunity? To do what?"

"To reform Mr. Rory"

* * *

It was later. He wouldn't call it 'night' -that doesn't really exist in the Temporal Zone- but Mr. Snart was sleeping off the energy required for his restored arm to get familiar with the rest of his body, and everyone else was doing their own thing. Rip Hunter had a few plans -He had invented ways to travel through time even without a Timedrive, he was more than qualified to think it was possible to reform their prodigal son, as it were, and get the full information of a Bounty Hunter under the employ of his former colleagues. 

"Captain Hunter," it was Gideon who spoke, jolting him out of his thoughts -plans for what he hoped to accomplish, at any rate, "The Waverider is being hailed by an unknown Timeship"

Hm. The last time this had happened, he'd essentially begin the whole mess they were in with Chronos now. Maybe this time it would be different. "Patch them in then, whoever they are."

And lo and behold, it was Mick Rory.

* * *

Chronos -was it still Chronos?- stalked back into his ship's deck. As he walked through the hallways, he glanced around. The bar he'd cuffed Snart to had been dislocated, and he could see that the Cold Gun was missing. And was that -Ah yes, brilliant _bastard_. He must have noticed Hunter's timeship had the ability to restore lost limbs. He hadn't stopped with that ridiculous Captain Cold voice, he couldn't have been desperate enough to consider giving up his hand just to break free. He could easily chart a course and go on a hunt for them. It wasn't really that difficult to figure out where the rogue Time Master would jump to; Rip Hunter was _really_ predictable in his one-track mind obsession with putting an end to Vandal Savage, and as every historian worth his salt knew, the road to Vandal Savage's short reign had to go through The Conglomorate. More accurately, Per Dageton. It would be easy to catch them there -Hunter, at the very least, was probably planning on assassinating the young Dageton before he could commit patricide and take over the Conglomorate -and how did _that_ work out? You'd think the shareholders would _vote_ for a new Chairman, rather than letting his relatively unskilled, wasteful and _clearly_ psychopathic son take over and run the company to the ground. 

But was it worth it? Did he even _want_ to be the one taking the Legends down and bringing Rip Hunter to the Time Masters?

For so long -more than a few dozen lifespans- he had been molded into the Time Masters' preferred image. Had it not been for his _hatred_ of the Legends, he'd probably be just as much of a drone as the rest of the Bounty Hunters. Maybe not Pilgrim -he didn't think it was possible for anyone to be _molded_ into something that twisted, seriously there was something _wrong_ with that bitch- but just another bloodthirsty killing machine. Well, more of one.

But he didn't think he still had that now. Make no mistake, he had not forgiven Snart for anything, but for the first time in who-knows-how-many-centuries, he was content, if only because now, there was something he hated even _more_ than Rip Hunter and his merry band of heroes. And for that purpose...

"Welcome aboard, sir" the AI said. He hadn't named it -hadn't felt a need to, he wasn't a Time Master, he couldn't afford to make friends with the homicidal AI that ran _his_ ship. But... maybe later.

"Hail the Waverider." he snarled quietly as he took off his helmet. The somewhat surprised face of Rip Hunter appeared on his screen. "Mr. Rory." the time traveler said.

"You might need to cut your trip to Kaznia short. You're about to have _much_ bigger problems than just me"

"You can't mean-" "Yes. You've gone up in the wanted list. The Hunters are after you. Or, if they're not _already_ , they will be soon."

"That means, I trust, that we will not be seeing you again?"

"Hmmm" he growled, "maybe". He shut off the communications. He's warned Rip. What Hunter did with that knowledge was only his business. It _was_ funny, really, to think about it. Had Hunter gone even a few decades into his _own_ future, he would know perfectly well that Savage's reign of terror would end with the Thanagarian Invasion. You'd think that as a rogue Time Traveler, he'd just snatch his wife and son and beam them into future. It wasn't _impossible_ -but then again, Rip Hunter's demand for vengeance far outweighed his love for his family. 

Chronos hadn't succeeded in bringing Rip Hunter down. He had a feeling he was about to become a target, but he _could_ handle the Hunters. Provided he didn't make enough of a mess outrunning them, he would be just fine letting Chronos die. Mick Rory, Master Thief and Infamous Criminal, now with a Timeship. What could possibly stand on his way?


End file.
